potential PPC Amiga REAL CHEAP

[Louis Dias]

Well, it comes down to preference I guess.  Linux is too 'ix for me.  The average lazy user (myself included) doesn't care for linux or anything dos-like that involves lots of config filed that need to be edited...etc...  Just give me a simple gui that works.  That's AOS 3.1, that's the vision behind AROS.

I'm playing with Linux as a proof of concept.  As I am a Windows developer using Visual Studio, I am quite put off my having to create these make files to recompile xyz to make it work with configuration abc.

And I'm for moving THIS platform forward, not Linux.

[Louis Dias]

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010516S0056

The GameCube team chose to build off the existing PowerPC design to leverage the available tool chain, such as compilers and optimizers. IBM claims this has given developers a jump on creating new games. "Developers have been making software for the GameCube a long time before people knew we were doing the silicon," said IBM's West. "If you were to take code written for a PowerPC you could essentially run it on this device. We didn't deviate from what is a well-understood architecture by a large amount."

Incase anyone still doesn't think the GC's cpu is a real PPC.

[Louis Dias]

if you read the article it describes the changes structurally as mostly on the integer processing.
floating point processing enhanced

if you read www.gc-dev.com's forums they use standard PPC cross-compilers to run homebrew code with some config file to take advantage of the extra instructions...

standard PPC compiled code runs just fine

this is another '+' for the GC and Revolution as a platform for OS4 and/or AROS PPC

[Louis Dias]

Judging from this:
http://www.geofront.co.uk/mac/amigaos4.html

I'd say 24 + 16 MB of ram will let you run 3 or 4 "modern" apps at the same time before memory starts becoming an issue...

[Louis Dias]

Amazing news from www.maxconsole.net

BREAKING NEWS: Viper-GC Extreme Details Emerge!

We've received a few pictures of Viper GC Extreme from the Viper Team. It will come in two parts. The chip itself will have 16Mbit flash, two connectors (programming & GC wires) and extended features compatible with Viper GC. The other part is the Viper USB Adapter. It can be used to flash the Viper GC Extreme and regular Viper GC. But here comes the kick-ass part: it can be plugged in the Modem/BBA slot of the GC to provide USB full-speed bidirectionnal communication. We're told it is extremely easy & powerful for coders and that a few lines of code are enough to send or received data.

That's everything!

[Louis Dias]

I would be willing to start a bounty.

how does that work?  Do I have to put up the money up front in some AROS-dev team controlled account or do I just pay up when it's completed.

A Gamecube AROS-MAX PPC DVD iso would be great.  My mod chip lets me boot right from DVD.

Heck, I can launch apps from SD card too...and there a read/write api already.

Storage is not an issue with me anyway as a network file server can be purchased stand-alone or running off my PC.  I already know it's  more than fast enough despite what some people on this site will tell you.  If it's fast enough for the business environment, it's fast enough for you and me.

EDIT:

Author says there will be a host and slave mode:
http://www.gcdev.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1511

JOY!

[Louis Dias]

Actually the only thing illegal to my knowledge it if I were using the mod chip to make illegal copies of software or using code from Nintendo's own developer's kit without a proper license then it would be illegal.

All code on the homebrew scene has been reverse engineered.  That is perfectly legal.

ps,

I am importing 50 SD card adapters for the Gamecube (minimum order).  I have received interest in these from a number of people on the gcdev.com forums so I bit the bullet and took a chance and did an international money transfer.  Here is the url with tracking information.  So it looks like I ain't getting screwed so far.
http://app1.hongkongpost.com/CGI/mt/e_detail.jsp?mail_type=ems_out&tracknbr=EE689048961HK&localno=EE689048961HK

These were an Asian market product only.  Only 2 Nintendo games are actually compatible with it:  Animal Crossing and Doshin The Giant.  So it's basically for homebrew developers.  If anyone needs one, I should have them next week.

@MskoDestny
In those screen shots, I assumed 256MB and that 64MB were dedicated/designated as "chip ram" and 192MB to fast ram so it looked to me like memory useage was much smaller.  Maybe the author can correct us.  I'll post about that on his thread.

[Louis Dias]

Wow, I just stumbled upon this:

http://www.sandisk.com/pressrelease/20050106a.htm

combine the SD card adapater with this product and now you can hook up any USB device to a gamecube.

Now you've got your USB storage and your ethernet.

That's everything.

here's an 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive for $83 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1538966&CatId=530

[Louis Dias]

koaftder wrote:

lou_dias wrote:
Wow, I just stumbled upon this:

http://www.sandisk.com/pressrelease/20050106a.htm

combine the SD card adapater with this product and now you can hook up any USB device to a gamecube.

Now you've got your USB storage and your ethernet.

That's everything.

here's an 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive for $83 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1538966&CatId=530

Yea, great. So where are the drivers? Wheres the OS port? Go learn C, post back when you are able to do more than "Wouldnt it be great if?". Generally speaking, nobody cares.

Hey, if you don't care, then don't read and more importantly don't post.

As for drivers... there is a c library, libogc, that has a read/write api for SD cards for homebrew code.

on Linux

The MMC/SD card kernel block driver has been updated to support read/write mode . It also supports now hot-plugging cards, thanks to new functionality added to the EXI layer.

from www.gc-linux.org  :-P

[Louis Dias]

MskoDestny wrote:
That SD card cannot be used as a USB host. It's just an SD card that can double as a USB flash drive.

oops read it too fast...I'll find one though...

[Louis Dias]

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18784

I'm staying out of this thread even though it re-iterates alot of why I want a GC port.

Anyway, I have received the SD Gecko cards.   If anyone is interested in one, email me.

[Louis Dias]

At work this week, I witnessed a 64MB Windows Mobile PDA running internet explorer.  The system has no hard drive or extra memory in it other than the built-in 192k ROM.  Cache was only invented to load pages you visit often faster back then.  With today's internet access speeds, a web cache is not required.

Back in '96, I was using IBrowse on my 6 meg CD32+SX-1 system to get on the web and only at about 14.4kbs!  I eventually upgraded to 33.3 and 56k, but by then I was on the PC with 32 or 64 megs of ram.

So I say a GC running AOS can be quite useful for mobile (in car) gaming and simple web surfing + email.

[Louis Dias]

KThunder wrote:
dude do you dig this thread up every time you find something interesting? you can start a new thread you know. they let you do that :-o

Wouldn't that be worse?

Besides it goes along the lines of 40MB isn't enough memory to do anything with a Gamecube...which ofcourse is B.S. as Amigas have been doing plenty with 2MB and a floppy.  Heck back in the day, a 20MB HD was huge...

Oh, and I have SD Gecko memory card adapters in stock incase anyone is interested.  I've shipped some out to a couple of GC developers and they are happy.

http://www.gcdev.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1493&start=30

[Louis Dias]

Everything you always wanted to know about the PPC chip inside the GC but didn't know you could ask:

http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gc-linux/06ibm-gekko.pdf


ps,
I'm staying on topic.  If all the useless comments were removed from the thread, I wouldn't complain...

[Louis Dias]

look for it here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gc-linux/

[Louis Dias]

OMFG!

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=5512

USB HOST - coming soon!

...now that is everything...

now what was that again about the GC not being a sound Amiga PPC platform?